Inebriation
by 0oxymoronic0
Summary: You see, there were parties. MerlinxArthur. CODA: "You'll probably get me killed for this, you know."
1. Inebriation

_**Inebriate:**_

_**1. to make drunk; intoxicate.**_

_**2. to exhilarate, confuse, or stupefy mentally or emotionally.**_

_**3. a habitual drunkard.**_

You see, there were parties. And Arthur _liked _parties.

Merlin, on the other hand, did _not _like parties. Parties meant about a hundred different people in a crowded room with many, many ways of trying to kill Arthur. And that was _not _something he particularly wanted them to do.

The other thing that happened at parties was lots and lots of _drinking. _Which, inevitably, ended up in a very drunk Arthur, who he'd often have to drag through Camelot and curse rather fluently under his breath. He'd like to say Arthur was a happy drunk – a childish drunk – but you see, he just sort of giggled. And a 'giggle' is something that should _never _come out of Arthur's mouth.

Sometimes Merlin would have preferred him to be an angry drunk, and not be so damnably keen to _touch him all the time._

* * *

Then, naturally, there were the hangovers. He gave up asking Gaius for cures and simply made his own, but he could have sworn that sometimes Arthur got so _angry _with him it was as if he'd never given him the medicine. The most intolerable thing Merlin ever found was when Arthur wasn't _quite_ drunk enough to be dragged to his bed, but wasn't _quite _sober enough to remember it in the morning. It was these times when they _argued_, and it was arguing with Arthur that he hated the absolute most.

* * *

"You know, Merlin, you do seem ever so keen to find a way to utterly _humiliate _me whenever we step outside together!" Arthur was pacing, and Merlin was just waiting for him to trip over something, knock himself unconscious and give him the opportunity to put him to bed for the evening.

"I saw her putting something in your goblet, and – "

"You just presumed she was out to kill me, like every other bloody person in the court?"

Merlin gritted his teeth. "How was I to know that it was an – an – _aphrodisiac_ and not some hideously crippling – even _fatal_ – poison? It is my _job_ to keep you safe – "

"Oh, that must be one _hell _of an introduction!" Arthur put on a ridiculous pose, gesturing with his hands, and Merlin could only hope that he didn't actually look like that. "Hello there! I'm Merlin, the royal_cockblock_!"

Merlin seethed. "I simply – "

Arthur ignored him. "Besides, the last time I checked, you were my _manservant_, not my _bodyguard_!"

"I just want to keep you _safe_, Arthur," he enunciated, trying not to fume like a child. He spun on his heel and marched towards the doorway; the prat could bloody well put himself to bed tonight, he decided, ignoring Arthur shouting from behind him.

"You know, one of these days it'll be _me_ saving _your_ life, and I might not bloody bother!"

Well, we all know how that one turned out.

* * *

It would be nice, Merlin decided as Arthur snorted in an un-princely manner, his head rebounding off the top step, if, just once, he could get drunk as well.

Arthur's head thumped painfully against a stone pot of some sort, and he giggled again. Merlin sighed, readjusted his grip on his liege's armpits and resumed his dragging. He tried to minimize further collisions by hoisting him up a little further – he wasn't strong enough to put him in a fireman's lift, and he'd never live it down if he held him across his chest in his arms like a bride – or a _child_ – so his hands moved to lock around Arthur's waist and chest. There was a long, resounding _hiss _and Merlin cursed himself, dropping Arthur slightly as he tried not to irritate the bruises blossoming across Arthur's chest and waist.

You see, Arthur had this damnable fondness for tournaments. And had a terrible habit of getting himself rather messily injured, and then deciding that inebriation would be the best painkiller. Today had been no exception; Merlin could have sworn that bar brawls back home had been more sophisticated – or more protected, at any rate. As he backed through the door to Arthur's chamber and the latter hissed again, he couldn't help but think that – chivalry be damned – it had been a _bit _foolish to take his armour off.

Before the tournament, Merlin would have called him an insufferable prick. Arthur had a silly habit of getting himself all ponced up, gallant and brave in these things byrescuing fair maiden and bybeing more chivalric than the others, and in doing so getting himself spectacularly injured. It all seemed very silly to Merlin, but after the tournament his motives became clear; there was only one eye that he turned to for approval, and Merlin had rather angrily discovered that approval was so very rare in coming.

(It was times like these, when Arthur was most _definitely _asleep and would not remember it in the morning, that Merlin found his fingers raked in his hair and murmurs slipping off his lips that he was _so incredibly proud_, and he just did not know why.)

Merlin dumped Arthur rather unceremoniously on the bed, tugging him out of whatever he could get undone and leaving him in something moderately comfortable to sleep in. Ensuring his sword was ready to hand by the side of the bed, he made to leave, but found that Arthur was staring at him, his eyes focused in a very calm, very disorientating way. It wasn't just the fact that he'd been _convinced_ the other was completely unconscious; if Merlin hadn't just spent the last five minutes hauling his inebriated carcass across cold stone he would have gone as far as to say Arthur was sober. He'd very rarely seen him look so _serious_. Arthur let out a long, steady sigh, and peered at him with blue eyes. "You know, I wish you would teach me how to be a sorcerer too, Merlin, so then I could return this god-awful spell you've bewitched me with."

And then, just like a candle, he was out – dead to the world. Merlin's heart, too rapidly forced to fly from fear, panic to outright confusion, was making loud, angry protestations in his chest.

This, this – the queasiness in his stomach, the giddiness in his head, the stupid, idiotic _hope _in his heart – was why he _hated _parties.

The hangover was more agonisingly heartwrenching than usual – and it was because Arthur couldn't even _remember_, a fact he'd normally take as a godsend, but that morning just made it all the more excruciating.

* * *

_Oh, sod it_, thought Merlin, after a particularly trying life-threatening experience (or, at least, life-threatening for Arthur – when were things ever different?), and proceeded to get rather blissfully, totally drunk.

You would have thought Arthur would have stopped him. Yet the heroic prince was celebrating another victory, laughing raucously with his friends, and did not have the time to keep an eye on a wayward servant, who had not really been _drunk _since he was twelve and was beginning to realise just how intensified emotions became during his inebriated state – and just how _warped_ all logic and reason became.

Merlin had never thought himself as possessive. And yet, whenever Arthur's eyes rested for more than a handful of seconds on _anyone_, he found himself feeling rather intensely that he wished to jump on the bastard and shove Gaius' staff up their arse.

And Arthur was definitely, _definitely _not becoming more attractive.

Not in the slightest.

He was a prat. Alright, he was a prat with rather nice eyes, and a very long neck, and rather shiny hair – alright, alright, he was a rather _good looking – _**alright**, _gorgeous_ prat – but all in all he was a prat.

With clothes, Merlin was sure, were not that tight or _revealing_ when he dressed him this morning.

It was when the wall had a chandelier hanging off it that Merlin realised he was in rather big trouble, and when Arthur's head floated mysteriously above his own he squinted up to it in the candelight, frowning in puzzlement.

"Hell-ooo," came a disembodied voice from above. Heaven. At last. _There'd better not be a bloody dragon here, too_. "Goodness, he's worse than me." The world shifted, and the wall-chandelier turned out to be a ceiling-chandelier, as the floor turned out _not _to be beneath his feet anymore – well, _fancy that_ – and his face was unceremoniously thrust into Arthur's neck.

Nope. He did not bloody snuggle. Don't even suggest it. Simply, he was cold and Arthur was close and warm.

"Here we go," the angelic, comforting voice came again, shifting him up higher. "God, I pity you now. I'll never get drunk again." He stopped moving, swaying Merlin's vision giddily, and let out a derisive bark of laughter which had him smiling unconsciously too. Continuing to advance again, Merlin felt a familiar smell fly across his nose, and shrunk reflexively further into Arthur, who laughed, dumping him on the bed and drawing across the curtains. Merlin was unaware of any advancement other than the fact he was no longer warm, and protested loudly to the fact – Arthur sighed and stuck his head through the curtains. "You do realise my life is damnably awful enough already – I shall have to go beg Morgana for accommodation, now you've taken up my perfectly comfortable bed yourself. What _do _you want now?" That was entirely nonsensical to Merlin, who simply peered up unabashedly, conveying the fact that he had not clearly understood a conversation for many hours now. Arthur chuckled, performed an expression Merlin would only ever be able to describe as a _leer_, and asked, "well, now, Merlin. _Haven't_ the tables turned?"

That simple statement should not proceed to make him feel so afraid.

Ew. Wet and slimy. Kind of warm, wet and slimy, but still, wet. And undeniably slimy. Okay, okay, not _that _slimy.

Um. Back up a second? Arthur's by the bed, not on it.

Whoops, his mistake. Definitely on it. Definitely on _him_.

Merlin was sure that he used to have clothes on too. He _knew _Arthur shouldn't, because he quite distinctly remembered taking them off.

Oh.

_Oh._

Merlin saw stars.

_Whoops_, he thought, and vanished them with a quick wave of his hand.

Alright. Maybe parties weren't _so _bad after all.


	2. Coda: Of Hangovers and Haplessness

**Of Hangovers and Haplessness**

Merlin wasn't sure whether he was glad there was no hangover on the morning after the night before; sure, it meant he could think straight (and that was rather lovely, especially because it meant he was _awake _from the second Arthur was), but he didn't get to give Arthur his comeuppance and be a tad petulant – or at least _stroppy_ – all day.

Merlin rolled over and Arthur was staring at him, and hadn't bothered to put any more on than he had last night.

Okay… maybe the lack of hangover wasn't _so _bad.

"I was going to call for breakfast in bed, but it seems that my manservant is rather preoccupied this morning." The intolerable smirk which would _usually _be intensely irritable was really rather cute this morning. Evidently Arthur had not drunk as much as usual – which threw his motives from last night into a rather hopeful perspective – as he was not storming around and throwing things and shouting at him.

There was a hand on his thigh, tracing cooling circles; the motion was so abstractly intimate from the dispassionate conversation Merlin found himself watching it intrepidly. "If I'd known you to be such a hapless romantic, I would have demanded you to get down on one knee last night and kiss my hand."

Arthur smiled, circling motions becoming smooth, straight lines, gradually lengthening. "If I'd known you were going to act like such a girl I might not have brought you back here in the first place."

"Yes, because I think you just confirmed your complete lack of interest in girls." Merlin found himself peeking up between his lashes, hating himself for his sheer femininity and then really not minding it much at all because Arthur was _blushing_, and it was just – well, adorable.

Somehow, somewhere in the proceedings, one finger had become a hand, and Arthur's mouth was fluttering across his face. The second hand slid down to rest calmly on the small of Merlin's back, and despite the acceleration of his heart he looked up with cool eyes. Arthur smiled.

"Do you trust me?" he whispered in his ear.

"Absolutely," Merlin replied, and moved up closer to prove it.


End file.
